Karaoke Forums

Hey all,

Just getting started on karaoke and I've seen references to the Sweet Georgia Brown CDGs and looked at eBay listings. The SGBs look like a cheap way to establish a core song selection and I was hoping someone could give me on overview on if they were worth picking up and what specifically should be acquired. I have questions like:

How is the song/lyrics quality?
What have they released? I see 68/78/84 CD sets that seem to have the same disks included. Are there different sets or only one?
I'd much rather support an established merchant than buy off eBay. Where is the best place to pick up a set?

Thanks in advance for any clarification on SGB's offerings!

In my opinion, they are crap. Others llike them, but I'd question their hearing.

Most manufacturers have their "gems" and SGB is no exception. However, saying that, for the most part, they are lousy. I for one do NOT recommend them at all. I do own a few, but rarely play them.

If you want to immediately change the mood of a room from high energy party to sleepy moonlight martini & cigarette cocktail hour, sing one of the SGB jazz numbers, like Body and Soul.

I kind of like their two jazz discs. My guess is you can get a set of SGBs fairly inexpensively, and that alone might be a good reason to them. Some of the renditions are bad. Some are "unique". And in the dirt there might be a few diamonds.

Generally not the best, but not the worst either. But they are cheap.

They are in general recorded a lot louder than most other manus, usually I turn down the sound volume about -10 db compared to what I generally other run the sound for other brands.

I compared about 10 songs where I had multiple copies with a DB meter and everything else constant, and most brands were within 1-4 db of each other but SGB was always about +7-12 compared to the others. Without turning things down (and assuming you have your sound set well for the other brands) SGB will be to loud and potentially distorted.

The -10db fix does not make SGB great but it helps a lot, and after the fix they are not the worst out there on average.

Sure they have a handful of gems - as do any brand. However I would not subject my singers to them as my base core set. IMO they just plain suck overall. If you want a core of crap that you will most likely want to re-spend money replacing, then it's a great way to start a set.

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Just received 50 Pop Hits Monthly CDGs in the mail, they are from 2001 to 2008, $51 total on ebay. That's the way to start a library. Go online and find deals on these. I bought some SGB and Zoom and Sunfly, a large % of those I have replaced with SC, CB and PHM. There's a few SGB that arent' bad, but after experiencing buy, playing, and singing these, I wouldn't invest money in SGB unless I got it for a penny per five songs.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Hey PaxMagnus..

You get a lot of karaoke snobs on this board.

Nothing wrong with the Sweet Georgia Brown collection, and as a professional DJ/KJ with over a decade of experience, they're a great way to build a collection for the new KJ looking to build a catalog quickly, legally, and inexpensively.

Sure there are tracks in the collection that suck, but you get that in collections costing 5x more with 1/4 of the songs.

My original 'core' group of discs were made up of original pioneer laser discs and the SGB collection. As the years went by i'd gradually replace the less than stellar SGB versions with better versions from SoundChoice & Chartbuster, but that SGB collection got me on the ground running at a time when I didn't have a lot of money to spend.

And let me tell you something else.. in the close to two years when SGB tracks vastly outnumbered tracks from other mfg's, I never once had anyone complain about the SGB version, or refuse to sing, in fact, quite the opposite.

But I will say it really depends on the kind of crowd you're trying to attract.

If you're looking to cater to the hard core karaoke singer, well then SGB discs and $25 mics just aren't going to cut it.. but if you're like me and want to cater to the 'good time' crowd who understand it's just karaoke and we're drunk having a good time.. nobody notices that many of the SGB discs are mediocre.

Music Maestro is another way to quickly fatten up a catalog on the cheap. Again, not many award winning renditions in that library, either but a very economical way to fill your book.

For the 'good time crowd', it's better to have a wide selection of average discs than an anemic collection of amazing tracks.

The majority suck, yes there are some gems. The other collections like the SC Foundations/Bricks have far less clunkers and a majority of gems.
I once thought it didn't matter, and bought the SGB set when it first came out, it quickly got replaced. I love when we get singers that come to our show & compliment us on NOT using SGB like the club down the street.
We cater to good singing 'good time' 'spending' crowds - yes they do exist and seek out better quality music. Bad singers are not the only ones that want to have a good time but these are the ones that could care less if it was a SC or SGB - like you said it's all in the crowd you WANT to attract.

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Dude.. SoundChoice bricks are like what.. 120 songs on 8 discs for $100?

Meanwhile, the Sweet Georgia Brown collection is over 1,000 songs on 68 discs for $70.

There are well over 300 very usable and actually not bad at all tracks in the Sweet Georgia Brown collection, so even if you keep just those 300 and throw the rest away, it's well worth the $70.

Now with all that said.. I almost never play my SGB tracks.. but if for some reason I lost everything tomorrow and had to start from scratch with a limited budget, the Sweet Georgia Brown collection would be the first thing I bought.

I'm sort of torn between the two extremes on this--Lonman is exactly correct in that you will spend more money later replacing versions. At least that is what we do. If SC Foundation II was available when we first started, it would have saved money in the long run to have just gone that route. As it was, we got Foundation I, some CB Country sets and the SGB set just to test the water by having a variety of songs. We wouldn't have known our country crowd would also like 90s rock if we hadn't gone that route so it broadened our audience but I spend a lot of money getting better versions.

If a singer is going to get frustrated with the lyrics or version of a song, it is probably going to be one of our SGBs. On the other hand, if a singer is in their 30s, most of the songs they will pick to sing will be from the SGB set. They seem to have done a good job of picking the most popular songs. So if you don't know what your rooms will want to sing, SGB can be a cheap way to test the waters. But you will probably end up buying new versions of many songs later. I have a goal of slowly eliminating them from our library.

Odd thing is, sometimes I have bought better versions and the singer says they aren't better, even though they actually are a more accurate version. For some, they WANT the extra loud guitar. Hmmmmmm. And I must admit that just because those are the versions I learned when I was a singer, I still use them if I do "Hell" or "Zoot Suit Riot" even though we have SC and Priddis versions in our library.

LOL DUDE, yes you definitely get what you pay for. Worth it for someone who wants the quality. Plus if you do some shrewd shopping you can usually find the sets cheaper.

Sure great to fill in some gaps, but not as a core set.

Not me, i'd finance the GEM series.

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That's what I did. finance the GEM series. After purchasing three Supercdg sets thinking I could do it with those sets. One of them was Magic Tracks which is Sweet Georgia Brown. Another 3 disc set I got was Nutech which after hearing it for the first time on my sound system I decided to remove from my collection. I wouldn't give them as Christmas gifts to my worst enemy. I am keeping the sweet Georgia brown in my collection for the few Gems that is in there. But if I were to do it all over again I would get the GEM series and suppliment it with CB and Pop Hits Monthly and nothing else.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Well I tell ya what.. i'll go do a show with $100 worth of SGB music, and you do a show with $100 worth of SoundChoice and we'll see which one of us holds a crowd longer.. the guy with 120 songs in his catalog, or the guy with 1,020 songs.

Yeah, but your tracks are better. Yeah? Well so was BETA.. but *better* doesn't always translate into dollars at the cash register.

Let's not discount the 'fluff' factor that SGB provides as well. How often do you have anybody request Hello Horray by Alice Cooper or Across the Universe by Fiona Apple? You going to pay top dollar to put those songs in your collection?

Just two of the decent versions included in the Sweet Georgia Brown collection.

Again.. if you've got the jack.. buy $5,000 worth of SoundChoice and Chartbuster discs, but at the $70 price point for the SGB collection, even if only 100 songs are usable, you've still ahead of the game.. and you've got something to work with while you earn money at gigs and can expand your collection.

I agree with cheese.
Get (@$%&#!) cos it is affordable.
Then improve as you build.
Getting off the floor is the hard part.
It is economics that works.

Well, the fluff factor is a good point. To newcomers, there isn't a huge Doors selection out there that I know of so our Doors selections are mainly SGB and CB. The SGB "L.A. Woman" gets done alot.

GEM series puts a whole new light on things. I was thinking of terms of when we started just a few years ago and it wasn't available. With financing, it is a good deal. But if you don't get any shows, it's a lot of money to put out at once on the risk that you will be a success.

Wow Lep.
As pointed out SGB is (@$%&#!) and affordable.
Cheese is trying to point out a worse case sinario.
If you are (@$%&#!) and can afford (@$%&#!).
You can have it.

I have some songs on SBG but on no other manufacturer - I EQ the heck out of them by taking the highs back to almost nada...that makes them tolerable ... and only the most purist of the purists will ask if I have another version. On the other hand, some of the singers who carry their own carry SBG versions of some things.

Of course, as noted above, volume is an issue with them too so anticipate, drop the music volume a little before they come on and scare the crap out of everyone.

I picked up a set when I first started, as part of about $4000 that I spent on music - this was in the mid '90s. Don't use many SBG versions of anything anymore. Two I can think of (and only because these songs don't get sung much have I not replaced them) - Silent Lucidity and Stray Cat Strut.

I would watch Ebay and Craigslist for deals.

Off topic but recently tripped up a young fellow with "Silent Lucidity." First time anyone has sung it for us and we used a laser disc version. The singer was a real scarey looking fellow but actually quite polite, with a haunting voice and he did a good job . But he kept pointing at the screen and looking puzzled. He had never seen a video karaoke track before. Didn't know what the heck was going on.

A KJ was doing kamakaze one night and had me do Scotch and Soda. I think it's on SGB 1 or 2. This song has an instrumental so long that you actually have time to go back to the bar and order a scotch and soda, and probably drink it as well before the lyrics reappear on the screen. I had never even heard the song before, so I'm sure it sounded pretty bad. I think it wins the contest for the longest instrumental interlude.

I dare someone to sing SGB Scotch and Soda this week.